Cranbrook Colony - Not Forgotten by George Bernard O'Neill

The Cranbrook Colony was a group of artists who settled in Cranbrook, Kent from 1854 onwards and were inspired by seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish painters.

The group started with the painter Frederick Daniel Hardy who liked the countryside around Cranbrook and settled there in 1854. He was joined there after three years by his mentor, Thomas Webster, their studio being an old house in the High Street, of which Hardy occupied the basement.

Other artists who soon joined them were Frederick Hardy's brother George Hardy, John Callcott Horsley, and George Bernard O'Neill (who married Horsley’s cousin Emma Callcott), with George Henry Boughton and Augustus Mulready frequently visiting.

Their works were mainly romanticized views of the countryside and sentimental images of bucolic simplicity which proved extremely saleable to the industrialists of the Midlands.

"The Cranbrook style was enormously popular, and had many imitators," including William Henry Knight; its artists continued a tradition "of small old-masterish pictures until the end of the century."

To add to my comment on "The Rival"...It seems there is a bit of a discrepancy on the era it portrays. The interior of the room, including furnishings, like the instruments, and the couple's attire, is more 18th century. But the lady's hairstyle is most certain Victorian...Hmmmm

the Victorians often depicted the 18th C - which they saw as a sort of golden era - but often made the people Victorians in fancy dress. Shakespeare plays were usually done the same way. But well spotted.

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A blog on my love of Victorian and Edwardian paintings. Please note over 70,000 painters of this period, many very obscure, have been identified and this blog concentrates on those that have come up for auction in the last ten years or so. It is mainly compiled using old auction catalogues with help from the many reference books I own.

It includes painters born in the late 19th century who have painted well into the 20th. I make no pretence that my reproductions are technically accurate but are intended to show the style of the artist.

I rarely know who these paintings were sold to or the price they fetched. I recommend Artnet.com (a subscription service) to those for whom this is important. I am not in the Art trade, just an interested amateur who loves the arts of this period.